For those who don’t know, Nigel Pendse has released an annual survey on BI software for almost 10 years now, and he has an amazing grasp of how the market has changed, and how it’s sold vs. how it’s implemented, including a “shelfware” measure. Its scary but fun to read quotes like:

Remember the most profitable product for a vendor is shelfware. If they can sell shelfware, they never have to go back in and see the customer or worry about ongoing support. Most of their marketing campaigns are aimed at selling the most profitable product, the shelfware.

and

bq.You assume products from big vendors have more longevity. But actually the opposite is true. If you’re SAP or Oracle or Microsoft and you have a BI project that’s going wrong, it’s cheaper to can that product and go and buy a replacement product from another vendor. But if you’re a small company and that’s all you do, you’ll fix it. I can think of 20-year-old single-product vendors that are still in business and still supporting their customers for all that time, but I can’t think of any BI product that’s survived at a big vendor for even 10 years.